Leila and I have two anniversaries–our wedding date and–our first kiss which happened on April 17, 1970. Until then she was my best friend Fred’s sister. I was 15. She was two years and one grade older. These are details you won’t get from her. I hung out every week at Fred’s house. She’d hang out with us and she was a lot prettier than Fred.
Friday nights I would go over or they’d come over, and we’d watch the weekend horror show on TV together until nearly midnight. On this Friday evening our high school was putting on a production of West Side Story. We went with other dates. I took Marjorie and she went with Mike.
At intermission, Laila and I met up at the concession stand in the lobby and innocently arranged to rendezvous after the show for our usual Friday night routine. She had Mike drop her off at my house. Fred didn’t make it that night. So it was just the two of us.
We watched The Blob with Steve McQueen–an extraterrestrial blob of carnivorous protoplasm lands on earth, terrorizes a town and a group of rowdy teenagers. The teens end up trapped in one of those small-town silver airstream diners and the blob completely envelops it like a giant green jelly bean. I think they blasted their way out with fire extinguishers–the secret weapon was cold.
I don’t really remember too many of the details. But it got warmer in our family room. When things get scary, you naturally want to grab somebody. I got up enough courage to finally kiss her. And the rest, as they say, is history.
I pretty much decided right there and then to marry her. Where was I going to find someone else who could kiss like that? Five years later on June 21 we tied the knot. And sealed it with a kiss..
In June we will celebrate our 37th anniversary.
